HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1934-03-08, Page 6THURSDAY, MARCH 8th. 1931 THE EXETER TIMES-ADVOCATE
St. Joseph’s Family i wih a small baking powder can for
a toy.
Family consumes 9 loaves of Bread a day; 3 pounds of
Butter and the produce of 6 cows.
Bag of Flour every week; Kill a Pig every other week.
The Toronto Star-Weekly recently contained the pictures of
the Masse family, of St. Joseph, numbering 19 children together
with the following write-up by Eli Waters.
family 'of James and (Mabel
Masse, who are 43 and 42
age, there are nineteen
all alive, from 22 yeans of
months.
I asked,
afford land?” asked
■“My children have
fast it has kept me
provide food and
I find it better
I started with noth-
Now here I am with nineteen
Teresa, 17; Marie, 16; Yvonne,
Alphonse, 13; Joan 12; Cecile,
LJouis, 9; Ivan, 8; Antoinette,
Juliette, 7; Archie, 6; Leo., 5;
They do not have
much else. Three
there are thee -of four spots
you involuntarily heaved a
relef. But not so the Masse
They regard those blank
score
they
proud
am thankful to
give life to all
farmhouse liv-
Two cradles and two high chairs
are an essential part of the house
furnishings of the h'ome of Joseph
Masse on a farm two miles south of
St. Joseph, which is on the Lake
Huron shore, a short run down from
Goderich.
In the
•Charette
years of
children,
age to 4
They are as- follows: Maurice 22;
Florence, 21; Anthony, 20; Richard
19;
15;
10;
and
Michael, 3; Priscilla, 2 and Peter, 4
months.
In reading the above table, dear
reader
where
sigh of
family.
spaces in their remarkable
sheet with regret. Because
love their children, they are
of their extraordinary family, full
of health and happiness. And in
their kindly and serene Catholic
faith they are grateful to God for
having blessed them with isuch
bounty.
“How do you like having so great
a family?” I asked (Mrs. Masse, who
held her newest infant in her arms,
while her sixth child, Marie, a strong
big girl of 16 years, tended the ov
en filled with browning bread.
“It is not a question of liking,”
said Mrs. Masse. “I
be strong enough to
these little ones.”
And there, in the
ing and dining room, which seemed
to me like a schoolroom a recess,
filled with more than a dozen little
children, leaning on the tables with
chins cupped in hands, and quietly
regarding the curiosity of two. news
papermen in their homes with note
books and cameras, I was halted in
my mind by a most curious sense of
having met all this before. And after
a moment I remembered: only a
couple of days previous I had seen
the motion picture, “Little Women”
and the old-fashioned, long depart
ed, tender atmosphere of home that
pervaded that intensely sentimental
drama was here in the home of
James .Masse, a living fact.
Mrs. (Masse bakes bread every
day. Usually six or nine loaves.
She does a family washing twice a
week. She churns once
25 pounds of butter.
A 100-pound bag of
bought each Saturday.
Of the herd of 31 cows
the Masses, six are reserved to pro
vide milk- and cream for the family.
They have at the moment, 18 pigs
They kill a 200-pound pig every*
two weeks entirely for home use.
As you can see, 18 pigs on hand is
a week,
I
flour is
owned by
house, on the flat level fields along
Lake Huron, which is the headquar-
ers of this numerous family.
“You own no land?”
“How can I
Jam;es. Masse,
come along so
on the run to
clothing for them,
to rent land,
ing.
children all blessed with health. I
would rather have sons and daugh
ters than land.”
They do all their shopping in Zu
rich, and the boot and shoe trade of
Zurich is kept busy. Dr. Archie
McKinnbn, of Zurich, has officiated
at all but one of the births in the
Masse family,
the doctor for
years ago they had the stearlet fever.
"But nobody suffered,” said Mrs.
Masse. “In fact, we moved into
this present farmhouse during the
scarlet fever. Four of them had it.
We carried them on a mattress in
to the sleigh and brought them here.
They were none the worse.
And they look it. Seven of them
came trooping home from school
while we were there to join the
circle of interested youngsters round
the living room,
“If it is a picture you want,” said
Mr. iMasse, “you should have been
here in the summer when we are
hoeing beans. It would make a fine
picture to see the whole lot of us
in a field hoeing beans.”
From the toddlers up, they all
help, joyfully. The big girls help
with the babies. They “mind” the
house. They prepare the meals
watch the baking.
"The little boys go for the cows,”
said James Masse, "pile the turnips,
fetch and carry. As we have no ra
dio or any other entertainment
there might even be a little jealousy
over who shall do the chores. There
are not really enough chores to go
around, so chores are a prize.”
Only two of the nineteen have
ever seen a movie. There is no
electric light in the Masse home. By
lamp light they go to bed, the small
ones at 8 p.m, and rise, in winter,
not later than six o’clock. In sum
mer nobody can sleep, after five,
with all the noise of twenty-one
people getting ready for the day’s
work.
"How about family fights?” I ask
ed anxiously, surveying this, great
roomful of children and thinking of
the riot any two small sons can and
do make.
The Masse family all looked
zled. They did hot know what
ily fights are.
As we interviewed, the sublime
of bread baking told of an oven full1
of fat round loaves, and Marie, 16,
kept getting up quietly and going to
the stove to tend it.
“You bake every day?” I inquir
ed.
“Oh, some days,” confessed Mrs.
Masse, “when I know I won’t have
the opportunity the following day
I bake a double lot. I did not bake
yesterday, for example, Instead I
made those dresses for the twins.”
Antoinette and Juliette stood out
in all the glory of beautifully made
little dresses of material bought in
Zurich. Just a couple of dresses
tossed 'off in a few spare hours, while
Marie minded four-month Peter and
Yvonne watched over baby Priscilla
toddling happily around the floor
said Richard. “I
like to see a pro hockey
iBut as for the city, I don’t
You take a city job: now
puz-
fam-
odor
SALADA
Exquisite
Quality
GREEN
TEA
713
Also in Black
and Mixed
not enough.
“But,” said James
are expected.”
They have twelve
tractor to work the
rented farm which is required
support the family of 21 souls.
Masse, “more
horses and
380 acres
a
of
to
All Help With the Work
Maurice, the oldest son, and Flor
ence the oldest,girl, 22 and 21 years
of age, were both married last No
vember. They live within shouting
distance of the modest frame fariri-
Old-Fashioned Faith
They have a car, A twenty-one
passenger sedan. O f course the
most it will hold is. eleven.
“I would not have the car,” eaid
James Masse, “except to go to
church. It is three and a half miles
up to church, and where there are
two masses on a Sunday we can all
go. But ueually there is only one.
So eleven of us get in.”
The older boys do not drive the
car at all, W’hat motoring they
want they can get on the tractor.
When we arrived at the Masse farm
the two senior sons at home, An
thony and Richard, were just home
on the tractor from sawing wood
with it for a neighbor,
“If they want to go out for an
evening they drive one of the bug
gies,” said the father. "But you
see it would take a lot of buggies
to take use to church. That is why
we have the car.”
Two farms up, the people have a
radio, and Anthony and Richard are
there almost every night. They pre
fer the hockey broadcast bo any
thing else.”
“Are you chaps going to the city
sooner or later-” I asked. The cities
are—London 47 miles away and De
troit, down the Lake Hui<on shore,
a hundred and fifty miles.
"Not likely,”
would
game,
for it.
here, on the farm, we work, we are
happy, we can go to bed when
like, if we are not feeling up
much, we can lay off. Can you
that in the city?”
There was no argument there.
Our leading questions about life
and its plans and meanings fell with
a dull thud when we talked to An
thony and Richard, because like an
implacable rock is implanted in the
minds and hearts of these 'grown
men an old-fashioned faith in some
thing, the family, tlie land, the
church's teachings in this French
Settlement along the Huron shore.
Anthony and Richard came uneasily
from the great barn where they had
been doing an engine job on the
tractor. Even while we chatted in
the farm house, they had time to slip
out' and attend to several small
chores that were waiting. The way
they stood, the way they spoke to
their 43-year-oId father, was old-
fashioned. They stood straight, like
men. They spoke politely. Like
sons. A strange, arresting thing,
the bearing of these two young men,
I had got used, in recent years, to a
certain slinking grace, a sort of
sveltness or limpness, in young men.
I had forgotten about this thing that
Anthony and Richard Masse were
displaying.
“How did you French-Canadians
come here?” I asked.
“We have been here almost a hun
dred years,” explained James Masse.
“This is called the French Settle
ment. It is six miles long on the
Huron shore. In 1849 the Canadian
government opened up what they
called the Huron tract, and a settle
ment of us came from Quebec.' It
was my great-grandfather who
came here. It was a great time of
hardship, by the accounts they have
left. Of great
brought them as
and they walked
from Hamilton to
had only what they could' carry.
Mostly they were extremely poor,
and to add a little horror to the
thing,j the| government, so busy
with an overflow of immigrants, in
answer to their call for settlers, for
got about them, down here on the
shore. One winter our fathers and
mothers ate roots and wild vege
tables, For the first couple of years
they lived on wild game and in poor
little shacks. But here we are.”
we
to
do
suffering. Boats
far as Hamilton,
through the bush
Lake Huron. They
England.”
did Pierre Masse
Lauzon
or the
ever dream, as they
altar in old Quebec
day their children,
would be renting
came Seur de Lauzon, one of the
seigneurs of that new world that
was old) Quebec,
“Who owns the land you rent?”
I asked James Masse.
“An English syndicate,” he replied
“Some sort of land holding' com
pany in
■ Little
Sieur de
stood before the
that once on a
centuries later,
land from an English syndicate, and
rearing families of nineteen souls
on the shores of the then unknown
unexplored inland sea of Huronia,
where the very land they now work
was sanctified by the feet of Jean
de Breboeuf, the Jesuit, who trod
the trail from the Georgian Bay to
the French community at Detroit,
across the acres James .Masse tills.
They speak French in the Masse
home. Due to the fact that the
Catholic school is away up the Blue
Water highway, three miles, the
children attend the rural public
school which is only forty rods away
They speak excellent English. 'One
of the older girls works in iStratford
The old son and daughter are mar
ried,
home.
acres of it in
remainder, in
tables.
“Last year
beans,” said ,
a bushel then.”
Of course it is desparate going,
with farm produce so low. But they
they eat without question. They are
well clothed. They are healthy and
happy. There is no money for a
radio, or for gasoline to gad about
to towns and villages to see movies.
The remaining sixteen are at
They handle 380 acres., 150
pasture, most of the
grain, beans and veg-
They are entirely indifferent to the
Millar will or any other prize for
large famlilies. They are happy to
labor on the good earth. They pray
to God only to give Him. thanks.
Here is a family that knows noth
ing of the newer problems. Al] theiT
problems are old, old as man, Their
needs make them free. Of self-ex
pression. of adolescent behavior, of
all the “isms” and "ologies” of
modern life, they have not even
heard and would not understand if
they did. What about the commun
ity, of social relations? They are a
community themselves. Londlon is.
47 miles away. Zurich, where they
buy their cloth and their flour and
boots, has no motion picture palace.
Two farms north is a radio. The old
er boys are welcome there. They
walk. Or they drive the horse. -
And as I look at them, all and
thought of the sad old world, all go
ing to the dogs, according to the
scientists and sociologists, with no
body but neurotics left to inhabit its
"dank ruined cellars and all its1 son'gs
forgotten, I chuckled.
Because the family of Masse has
been here a long, long time, centur
ies and centuries, and by the look of
them, they are destined to be here
a long time yet, and no neurosis.
For what concerns them, after all,
is the use of the earth. God, en effet,
owns it.
WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS
READ THOROUGHLY
Few people realize the actual cov
erage of even the most modest
weekly newspaper. Not long ago an
advertising expert stated that care
ful research had escer.tained that city
newspapers are read, on the average
for the space of twenty minutes
while the average country news
paper has a "reading life” of three
hours to its credit. It is kept around
the house for a week. That is some
thing for both subscriber and adver
tiser to think about,
SOON TO START
ON BLUE WATER
I sold 5 00 bushels of
James. “It was 75c.B. F. ROBINSON
There passed away in 'Mitichell Ro
bert Franklin Robinson, at hie home
after a few days’ illnesis. Mr. Rob
inson was in his 82nd year and was
a resident of Mitchell for many
years. He leaves a daughter, Mrs.
John Phillips, Mitchell.
Goderich Looks to Government
Grading Thedford Section
Elation over the prospect of the
Ontario Government taking over 40'
miles of the Blue Wafer Highway,
from Thedford to Goderich, was ex
pressed at a Goderich council meet
ing by Mayor Lee, Reeve Munnings
and Councillor Humber, all of whom
were delegates of the Good Roads
convention held recently in Toron
to.
Mayor Lee said it was the biggest
news1 that had come to Goderich in
many a day. He anticipated that
work would commence just as soon
as weather permitted and that wid
ening, drainage and grading would
first be undertaken to bring the
road up to Provincial standard.
Councillor Humber observed that it
was a good thing to send delegates
to conventions. Had Bruce County
been represented at Toronto, he said
the mileage which the Government
is taking over might have been,ex
tended into that municipality.
Troubled
For the past 55 years
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I tried salves, ointments, poultices
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Then J. tried Burdock Blood Bitters
and was surprised at the results.
I only took two bottles and the
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Happy to Labor
Here they are, for truth, twenty-
one of them. James Masse’s family
had eleven, and Mabel Charette
Masse’s family had fourteen chil
dren. “We are accustomed to largo
families,” they said. James Masse
was left an orphan at eleven and he
has been working ever since.
The name Masse is pronounced in
the French settlement as iM'oss. They
are the descendants of Pierre Masse,
who came from France and was mar
ried in Quebec City in the year 1644
(Charles the First was deigning in
England with nary a thought of los
ing his beautiful curly head!) Pierre
Masse was married in the little city
of Quebec to Marie Pinel do la Chon-
aie. And (Mrs, Masse comes down
from the line of Etienne Charette,
born in Roictiers, France, and mar
ried in the city of Quebec in 1670 to
Catherine Biesot; their little sbn be*
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